Upgrades to the EU's power grid are needed at a cost of trillions of dollars in order to avoid blackouts similar to those that occurred in Spain

To cope with the increasing demand for electricity, and the growing green energy production in Europe, and to prevent blackouts, trillions of dollars will be needed to invest.

Spain and Portugal experienced their worst power outages in a week. Analysts and industry representatives believe that infrastructure investment will be essential, regardless of the results. Authorities are currently investigating the cause.

The blackout served as a warning. The blackout showed the urgent need to upgrade and strengthen Europe's electrical grid.

Half of the power lines in the European Union are older than 40 years. The growing demand for low-carbon energy and the booming production of it from data centres and electrical vehicles requires a revamping of grids. They also require digital protection in order to resist cyber attacks.

While the global investment in renewables nearly doubled from 2010, investment in grids barely changed, at $300 billion per year. According to the International Energy Agency, the amount needed to double to $600 billion per year by 2030 in order to make the necessary upgrades.

Spain has asked both its own investigators as well as European Union regulators, to investigate the outage that occurred on Monday.

Grid operator Red Electrica stated that two separate incidents were responsible for the massive power outage.

After the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the disruption to oil and gas supply that resulted, EU efforts were focused on reducing dependency on fossil fuels.

Ember's data shows that the share of renewables in EU power generation increased to 47% last year, from 34% in 2019. The fossil fuel share dropped to 29% in 2019 from 39%.

Spain has plans to phase-out coal and nuclear energy. In 2024, renewable generation in Spain will reach a new record of 56%.

Grids can take a decade or more to build.

The huge sums of money and the complexity involved in improving a grid across a long distance are part of the problem.

According to the European Commission, Europe will need to invest between $2 and $2.3 trillion in grids before 2050.

Analysts at Bruegel say that last year, European companies invested 80 billion euro ($90.5 billion), up from 50 to 70 billion the previous years.

CONNECTIONS INTERSTATE

Spain and Portugal are two of the few European countries that do not have connections to backup grids.

Jose Luis Dominguez Garcia, from Spain's IREC energy research centre in Catalunya, says that Spain needs to strengthen its links with France and Morocco.

He added that Spain only has 5% of its connections outside the Iberian Peninsula.

The European Commission, recognizing that some countries are also behind, has set a goal to increase the interconnection from 10% to 15% by 2030. This means each EU member should be able import at least 15 percent of their power production capacity.

Spain will strengthen connections with France. This includes a new link through the Bay of Biscay, which will double interconnection capacity between France and Spain, Spain's grid Red Electrica announced on Tuesday.

Back-ups are essential

The challenges of solar and wind power generation go beyond the upgrading of grids. They also include the need for backup generation.

Solar and wind farms produce direct current, while gas or nuclear power plants create alternating current.

Inverters convert DC power to AC at 50 Hertz standard for European grids, and then to AC power that can be used in homes and businesses. In the event of a power reduction, the grid will require AC power backup to maintain the frequency.

Automatic safety mechanisms will disconnect certain generation in the event of a frequency drop to prevent damage to transmission lines or transformers. The system may experience a blackout if too many plants shut down at once.

Spain's power grid had been unstable for several weeks before the outage last week. Industry officials have repeatedly warned about this.

Spain's energy officials also stated that the country's plan to shut down all of its seven nuclear reactors by 2020 could put power supplies at risk.

Luis Montenegro, Portugal's prime minister, said that the country only has two backup plants, a gas plant and a hydro power plant, which can quickly react if there is a need for more electricity on the grid.

A blackout in Britain in 2019 affected a million people when a lightning struck and another incident, which was unrelated, reduced the frequency of grid.

According to the industry association RenewableUK, since then the country has made investments to expand battery storage. At the end of the last year, around 5 gigawatts were installed. It can balance the grid the same as power plants.

According to the European Association for Storage of Energy, Europe currently has 10.8 gigawatts of storage batteries. By 2030 this will increase to 50 GW - a far cry from the 200 GW required.

Siemens Energy built the largest flywheel in the world, which is also capable of being used as a power storage device and to help stabilize the grid.

(source: Reuters)